The Protected

“I did what I could, you know,” he said quietly. “I did everything I could think of . . . letting him practice on me until I was almost immune to the headaches. I read so many bullshit websites, searching for any useful information I could find that might help him. And I still failed him.”

“You didn’t fail him.” She stared at his bent head, feeling like she was bleeding inside. “You just don’t have the tools needed to teach him this. He can get that from somebody else. It doesn’t mean you failed him.”

He lifted his head and stared at her. “He was almost taken because I didn’t protect him well enough, didn’t give him the tools he needed to protect himself.”

He surged up off the bed and started to pace, a sign of restless, reckless energy she’d never seen from him. “He’s making progress . . . I saw him.” He stopped and spun around until he was staring at her from across the room. “I went to the house yesterday, where Jones is keeping him, and I saw him. He looked almost happy, Vaughnne. It was like the burden he has carried all these years was just gone. In just a few days, these people have given him what I was never able to.”

“You can love him. You’re his family . . . that’s a bond nobody else can replace,” she said.

“His family . . . esta chingadera.” He turned away. “His family? Like that is the answer to everything? You know what I did, yes? To his mama? To my sister? I killed her, Vaughnne. Tell me now, what kind of family am I?”

“Why?”

He turned, the look in his glittering eyes full of rage and pain and grief. “Because she asked me to. Because I had to. Because if I didn’t, Reyes would catch us and kill us all. And if I left her alive? Reyes would just torture her more before she died.”

Then he went to his knees, slowly, his hands coming up to cover his face as a sob ripped out of him. Just one . . . that slow, ugly sound coming from the very core of his soul.

She’d known. In her heart, she’d known there were reasons . . . and she’d known it had left a scar on him. Blinking back the tears, she went to him.

Because she asked me to . . . because I had to . . . She didn’t know if he’d welcome her touch now, but when her fingers brushed across his skin, he reached out, quick as a wish, and hauled her against him, so hard and sudden, it knocked the breath from her.

With his face buried against her neck, he started to speak. “She called me . . . from the village. I already told you that. But Reyes was already after her and caught up with her just minutes after she hung up. She acted like she was trying to run. He didn’t know she’d made the call, and just took her back home. He started to beat her. By the time I got there, he’d beaten her . . . so badly . . . too badly. He’d shattered the bones in her legs, let her know that it was because she had run. He’d broken her ribs. And he did it all while Alejandro watched. The boy had to watch as his father tortured his mother, almost to death.” He paused, his chest rising, falling in hard, heavy pants.

She lifted a hand to his cheek and just waited.

“I couldn’t save her.” Stark, haunted eyes lifted to hers and he said it again, “I couldn’t save her. I told myself I could and I even tried to take her out of there, but she wouldn’t let me. She . . .” He looked away, a nerve pulsing in his cheek as he lapsed into a long, heavy silence. “Alex got it from her . . . this . . . whatever he has. I know he did.”

“It runs in families,” she said quietly. “I got it from my dad. It’s in the genes, just like a lot of other shit. The color of your hair, your eyes. This isn’t any different.”

He nodded stiffly. “He got it from her. She . . . she saw things. Sometimes things that had already passed, but it was from long ago. But other times, she saw what would happen—the future, I guess. She told me that if I tried to take her, Reyes would catch up with all of us and we would all die, except Alex. There would be nobody there to take care of him. He’d be a prisoner, trapped in that monster’s home, just a tool, forced to do what Reyes wanted and be beaten if he refused. That would have broken him.”

It likely would have. Or maybe Alex would have become a monster like his father. Vaughnne didn’t know which was worst.

“She made me promise,” Gus said quietly. “Before she would say anything, she made me make her a promise . . . there she is, my little sister, in so much pain, begging me to promise her something. And I would have done anything to make it better for her. So she tells me that I have to take care of the boy. I tell her I will. And then she tells me . . .”

His voice hitched. Vaughnne leaned in and pressed her lips to his cheek. “You don’t have to do this.”

But he didn’t even seem to hear her. Tears dampened his cheeks as he continued to speak. “She tells me, in vivid detail, what she has seen if I try to take her out of there. She tells me that she will not live through the night, because she is bleeding inside. I don’t know if she knew that or if she just guessed . . . she’d been going to school to be a nurse before she met Reyes. But she believes she is dying, and looking at her, I think she was right, even if I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t let myself believe it. I had to save her. That was all I wanted to do. Save her. Instead, she sends Alex out of the room—I had a man with me. Jimmy Doucet. It was his place we went to in Louisiana. He died a year later . . . cancer took him. He . . . mierda. He was the closest thing to a friend I had. But it was just the two of us. A quick job, in and out. He takes Alex out and I have my gun. She takes my hand and points to her head, tells me to kill her.”

* * *

YOU must promise me . . .

Even now, those words danced through his mind. Horror, pain.

No . . . Consuelo, stop this. You’re coming with us. Now come. It will hurt, but we will be fast.

No . . . you must do this . . .

Then she guided his weapon hand to her head and told him again what she had seen.

He will find us. He kills you first, from outside the hotel. Then, your friend. It’s a nice hotel. You didn’t want me to suffer and you brought a doctor. There are casts on my legs and I cannot even move from the bed when he comes through the door. Alejandro tries to run to me, but before he can, Ignacio grabs him. Then, while my son watches, that monster kills me.

He could still feel the way her hand had brushed his hair back from his face. The way their mother had used to do.

You can save my son, Gustavo. But you cannot save me. I cannot even move. Please . . . you must promise me. Take him, keep him safe. And don’t . . . please don’t let Ignacio hurt me anymore. If he tries to make me talk, I . . .

He’d tried to pull his hand away, horrified at the sight of his gun so close to his sister. She hadn’t let him.

If he finds me alive, he will try to make me talk. And I am not as strong as you. Please, Gustavo. You must protect my son . . . you must do this for me.

“She begged me,” he said softly. “Begged me to kill her. Begged me to keep him from being able to hurt her again. Begged me to protect her son.”

Vaughnne’s hand stroked his neck and he realized absently that he was rocking. She was curled up on his lap. He didn’t even know how that had happened, but it had, and the two of them were rocking, while she held him with soft, strong arms.

“If he’d beaten her that badly, you know she would have slowed you down. If she was bleeding inside, if he had hurt her that bad, it might have been impossible to save her,” she said softly.

He stiffened. “It doesn’t matter. If I’d been faster . . . if I’d killed that bastard sooner. That cabron hijo de su puta madre—if I’d killed him the minute I realized who my sister had married, then none of this would have happened.”

“And Alex wouldn’t exist.”

He closed his eyes as the bitterness of guilt chased through him. Yes . . . that was something else he knew. “I never cared that he was a drug lord,” Gus said softly. “Mexico is overrun with drugs. Many people there worship men like him. They are like folk heroes. There wasn’t much talk about Reyes, because he was careful. Always so careful. I should have paid closer attention, but I was never in the same part of the country, and if you look at a man like him too carefully, people notice. I looked, but I was careful about how I looked and I didn’t look too